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Now top art critic warns: ‘Somebody is going to wind up in jail’

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Anyone seen this missing statue? The Peter Youngman artwork. Photo: Bill Broaden

One of the country’s leading art critics, Norman Lebrecht, has today weighed in to the gathering storm around the £70million Fairfield Halls fiasco, warning that, “Somebody is going to wind up in jail” over what he calls the “chaotic rebuilding” project.

Lebrecht was responding to yesterday’s report on Inside Croydon regarding the latest lost artworks, the Peter Youngman statue which, until 2016, had stood on the corner of College Green, next to the Ashcroft Theatre.

Lebrecht edits an arts website, SlippedDisc, and has more than once referred to Inside Croydon over our coverage of the bungled Fairfield refurb. Which is nice.

Influential: Norman Lebrecht

Lebrecht’s views carrying some oomph. Once described as “arguably the most influential journalist covering classical music”, he has worked as a television news producer, music columnist for the Torygraph and as assistant editor of the Evening Boris, while also writing novels and presenting programmes on BBC Radio 3.

Lebrecht’s criticism of the Fairfield fiasco follows equally barbed coverage lately from The Stage and in Private Eye, as the arts world slowly wakes up to the damage that has been caused in south London by Croydon Council handing the Fairfield over to its loss-making in-house housebuilders, Brick by Brick.

Picking up on the Youngman story, today Lebrecht wrote on SlippedDisc, “Somebody is going to wind up in jail over the chaotic rebuilding of Fairfield Halls, Croydon, home of the London Mozart Players.

“There used to be a sculpture outside. No one seems to know where it has gone.

“Two Steinway grands have also vanished. Members of the council are giving blank looks.”

Croydon is London’s Borough of Culture 2023.

Read more: Conflicts of interest, incomplete contracts, unlawful payments
Read more: £30m Fairfield Halls project never went to competitive tender
Read more: Brick by Brick has paid nothing to council


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